Maintenance warning after employer fined $50,000

A Kerang business owner has been fined $50,000, without conviction, in the County Court after an employee was crushed and later died when an excavator bucket suddenly closed on him in June last year.

The maximum fine for an individual under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 is $189,000. Keith William Chirnside, who operates Kerfab Industries, pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace. The company makes and repairs agricultural and earth-moving machinery.

The Office of Public Prosecutions said that 55-year-old Ron Frost was replacing the steel lining of a front end loader bucket which closed on him and another man's hand was hurt as he tried to free Frost.

The director of WorkSafe's Manufacturing Logistics and Agriculture program, Trevor Martin, said maintenance and repair work was among the most dangerous: "Repair and maintenance work invariably means something is not as it should be, and consequently the risks need to be tightly controlled. We know from investigating many serious incidents each year that almost all workplace deaths and serious injuries involve people doing routine tasks.

"Improvisation is not innovation. Just because a task has been done 100 or 1000 times without incident does not mean it is safe. What it does mean is that you've previously been lucky."